Upton Sinclair’s landmark 1905 book, The Jungle, exposed the food contamination and worker exploitation hidden in the fetid stockyards and meatpacking plants of Chicago and other major American cities. The muckraking journalist dubbed the nasty and brutish meat factories “a monster … the Great Butcher … the spirit of capitalism made flesh.” The nauseating details of worker and consumer abuses that Sinclair exposed were so horrific that the ensuing public revulsion and outrage were transformative. […]